ANN ARBOR, Mich. — There was turmoil at Michigan following the loss to USC, so to get a win against a 5-1 Washington team cured quite a few of the Wolverines’ ills.
In the moments after the 24-7 victory over the Huskies, head coach Sherrone Moore didn’t even wait for reporters to get settled before he expressed his happiness and relief after dominating UW in pretty much all facets of the game. And with that, he says that everyone challenged each other to be better and the team rose to the occasion.
“What a win. It’s fun. That’s a fun win, a fun win to be a part of,” Moore said. “Our players, we talked in the locker room — we talked after the game at USC about just being all in and trusting each other, trusting the process. And we had some tough conversations throughout the week, offensively, defensively, of what we need to do, and how we need to adjust, and how we need to play better. And the response by our coaches: one, our offensive coordinator, our defensive coordinator, our offensive staff, defensive staff was outstanding. But more importantly, our players. Our players played with their hair on fire, played with detail, played with great fundamentals, and just really proud of our kids, man. Really, really proud of our kids and how they played.”
Part of it was being able to look at the situation neutrally and hold not only his coaches and players accountable, but himself as well. The win over Washington established that the mentality in the locker room might have been briefly strained, but they came out on top because everyone stayed together.
“In this position, you’ve got to hold everybody accountable. And I’ve got to hold myself accountable,” Moore said. “I’ve got to hold the coaches accountable. I’ve got to hold the players accountable. So that’s just part of it.
“And same thing, coaches to players, players to coaches, all those things. So that’s just part of football. It’s part of great organizations. When you do that, you’ve got to do that. You’ve got to have those conversations. And we talked about hardship plus commitment plus trust equals connection. And we wanted to stay connected. And I felt like we had some hardships last week. We asked and seen everybody that’s committed. And at the end of the day, we all had to trust each other. And if we did that, we would end up winning this game and be connected.”
Moore noted that he had the tough conversations, but declined to elaborate on them. Even still, he says that what was said yielded positive responses.
“Those tough conversations stay in-house,” Moore said. “They’re our conversations. Nobody else needs to hear what was said. But we responded. Everybody responded — offensively, defensively, special teams. We responded.
“So you got to have those. In any great organization, in any great family, there’s conflict. There’s things that happen. You got to push each other. And we did that this week. But we got to continue to do it.”
Michigan’s next game will come at MSU in a week in East Lansing.
This article originally appeared on Wolverines Wire: Sherrone Moore reflects on accountability, connection after Michigan’s 24-7 win over UW
Reporting by Isaiah Hole, Wolverines Wire / Wolverines Wire
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
